Lipscomb_thesis

Chapter Four

Missed Opportunities:

A Comparison of the Public School Systems of New Orleans and

the Rest of Louisiana

Public education in New Orleans differed drastically from the rest of Louisiana. While the Crescent City instituted successful and popular free public schools that catered to a large segment of its population, public schools in most of the rest of Louisiana languished, struggling to offer instruction for even a fraction of the year. Though many differences existed between metropolitan New Orleans and the rural areas that made up the rest of the state, those dissimilarities do not account for the disparate conditions of public schools. Many factors posed obstacles to public education and without the centralized guidance needed to standardize and regulate school systems across the state, an authority that only the legislature commanded, public education in Louisiana languished throughout the antebellum period.

Throughout the 1850s, Louisiana’s provision for free public schools, mandated by the 1845 Constitution, went unrealized in parish after parish. In many areas conscientious local citizens attempted to overcome the obstacles encountered in establishing a public school system and some succeeded. In 1858, for example, 59 percent of school age children attended twenty-seven public schools in Sabine Parish, where local officials explained, “the present school system is ‘intensely’ popular with us.”1 But in most of the state, the public school system proved inadequate to provide education for the majority of Louisiana’s children. State Superintendent William I.

1 “Report of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1858, 30.

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Hamilton admitted as much by 1859, beginning his annual report to the legislature, “our system is very defective in nearly every essential particular.”2 That year a reported 43,252 children of school age resided in Louisiana excluding New Orleans; of that number 14,844 - only 34 percent - attended public schools. More children attended public schools in the city of New Orleans in 1859 than attended the various public schools across Louisiana, though the city housed almost ten thousand fewer children than the rest of the state. The same year, out of 34,581 reported children of school age, 17,419 children regularly attended public schools in the Crescent City, a 50 percent attendance

rate.3

Patterns of settlement contributed in part to the drastic differences in attendance between New Orleans and the rest of the state. Inhabitants and state officials both failed to find a creative solution to the obstacle posed by sparsely populated rural areas. Where schools did exist, the distance from homes often prohibited many children from attending.4 Because the availability of both teachers and funds remained so miserably below the need, residents and school administrators enjoyed few options to overcome this problem. Unlike the metropolitan area of New Orleans, where inhabitants resided in a relatively confined space, families in the rest of Louisiana seldom lived within a reasonable distance from one another, so instituting a school at a central location that could serve a majority of the population remained problematic. As the treasurer of Plaquemines Parish explained to the state superintendent in 1856, “our School Districts, owing to the extent of the parish, and its being sparsely inhabited, embrace an average of

2Ibid., 1859, 4.

3Ibid., 3-95.

4Ibid., 1847, 9; ibid., 1851, 22, 35, 36; ibid., 1853, 7; ibid., 1854, 68; ibid., 1855, 20, 41; ibid., 1856, 83, 90, 103; ibid., 1858, 20.

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25 or 30 miles each, and by that unfortunate circumstance a large number of children are denied the privilege of attending school.”5 This contrasted with New Orleans, where despite the many private academies and tutors available, public schools attracted residents from throughout the area. The Second Municipality’s school board proudly boasted that a number of families even moved into the city just to gain access to its public schools.6 Though education officials called attention to the problems posed by sparsely settled rural areas, the legislature neglected to address this issue, offering no suggestions or solutions and leaving local areas to deal with this obstacle haphazardly and unsuccessfully.7

Another issue that education proponents confronted stemmed directly from the legislature - inadequate state funding. How different areas dealt with this obstacle, and the resources available to them, contributed to the disparate conditions of public schools in New Orleans versus the rest of Louisiana. In both the Crescent City and rural Louisiana, state appropriations for public education proved far from adequate to run public schools, suggesting that education remained a low priority for state lawmakers. A Plaquemines Parish official reported, “the amount allowed by the State is not adequate to that necessary for the education of the youth,” and the parish superintendent of East Feliciana explained, “the fund provided by law is entirely inadequate to pay more than one fifth of the expenses of tuition for one year.”8 New Orleans officials also complained about the inadequacy of state funding, noting, “the future prospects of our schools, in a

5Ibid., 1856, 83.

6Second Annual Report, Council of Municipality Number Two, (New Orleans: printed at the office of the Commercial Bulletin, 1844), 25.

7“Report of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1847, 9; ibid., 1851, 22, 35, 36; ibid., 1853, 7; ibid., 1854, 68; ibid., 1855, 20, 41; ibid., 1856, 83, 90, 103; ibid., 1858, 20.

8Ibid., 1858, 81; ibid., 1851, 21.

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pecuniary point of view, are unfavorably and discouraging. The municipality being greatly embarrassed, will, with great difficulty find means to pay rents, furnish books and stationary, defray incidental expenses and complete the amount necessary to pay teachers’ salaries, which the State appropriations do not meet in full.”9 Because allocations from the legislature proved inadequate, residents in both New Orleans and parishes across the state voiced complaints about the basis of the state allocation, lobbying to alter the basis of distribution so that their area would receive a bigger share. The primary complaint from New Orleans residents and officials centered on the need to adjust the formula for determining the level of state support. Specifically, reformers urged that state appropriations should be based on the number of students receiving instruction rather than the number of children of school age.10 Because New Orleans educated considerably more children in public schools than the rest of the state, such an alteration certainly would have benefited the city. Parishes throughout the state also offered suggestions on changing the basis of appropriation. The main grievance voiced by rural officials centered on the inequality of state appropriations in relation to the amount paid into the public school fund. The state taxed parishes for public education per inhabitant, but then disbursed the money based on the number of school age children residing in the parish, meaning many parishes that contributed heavily to the school fund received only a portion of that money back in return. Therefore, when the state allocation proved too small to run the public schools, local residents demanded that the money they themselves paid into the fund be allotted to their own parish.11 The state legislature

9Ibid., 1851, 25.

10Second Annual Report, Council of Municipality Number Two, 20-21.

11Report of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1849, 10; ibid., 1851, 28, 41; ibid., 1856, 21, 83; ibid., 1857, 93, ibid., 1858, 95; ibid., 1859, 7, 64.

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earned vehement disapproval by both the amount and basis of its appropriations. New Orleans enjoyed the means to augment the small amounts of state appropriations, but no other area in Louisiana enjoyed such financial resources.

Schools across Louisiana dealt with the inadequacy of state funding in a variety of ways. The city of New Orleans greatly supplemented the paltry amount from the state with large allocations from the city council. In 1844 New Orleans’ Second Municipality spent $21,000 on its public schools, with only $2,300 coming from the state fund.12

Likewise, public schools in rural Louisiana also depended on extra income in order to remain in operation. Most often schools across the state benefited from donations contributed by local inhabitants in order to maintain their schools.13 Some areas also levied additional taxes on their residents in order to augment their education fund.14

When rural parishes added a local tax to support their schools, they most often levied a one time charge that went to a specific purpose, usually building a school-house. But relatively few parishes chose to increase taxation, as the state superintendent explained to the legislature in 1849, “it appears from reports filed that some of the directors have evinced a great repugnance to levy taxes on the property of their neighbors to build school-houses.”15 Most frequently, local residents contributed their help to the public schools voluntarily, by providing supplies such as fuel or stationery, donating furniture or a building, or helping to build a school-house. An exasperated state official complained of the dilapidated condition of school-houses across the state, but concluded that their

12Second Annual Report, Council of Municipality Number Two, 20.

13See pp. 82 above.

14See pp. 82-83 above.

15“Report of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1849, 9.

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condition came as no surprise considering the “sum so satirically small,” spent on them.16

He explained that “while there are not fewer than 800 school-houses, only $3,034 dollars is stated to have been expended in building, improving, repairing and furnishing them, during the past year, or considerably less than $4 each on an average.”17 But the superintendent failed to acknowledge the considerable amounts donated to build and maintain school-houses, in both supplies and labor, with no notice taken of the worth of such contributions. In 1851 over half of the reporting parishes relied on voluntary donations to help support their public schools, suggesting that legislative appropriations conflicted with the needs and desires of residents.18

In addition to taxes and donations, many school districts resorted to more certain means of supplementing state aid - they charged tuition. As early as 1852, parish reports reveal that some schools established as “free public schools,” based on the 1847 Act charged tuition.19 Morehouse Parish officials, for example, explained that “the amount received for past year falls far short of paying for the schooling, which is made up by the patrons of the school.”20 In another area, the parish treasurer explained that his district maintained one public school which operated for ten months and charged pupils from $2.00 to $3.50 depending on the courses taken.21 Charging tuition remained an unexplored option for New Orleans public schools. When funds fell short, which they typically did, school officials looked to the city council and to private contributions to sustain the system, but the schools remained free. As the 1850s progressed, more and

16Ibid., 1857, 17.

17Ibid., 16.

18Ibid., 1851, 6-48.

19Ibid., 1852, 19.

20Ibid.

21Ibid., 20.

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more parishes reported that their public schools, established as free schools, charged the students in order to remain in operation. In 1855, a Plaquemines Parish official explained, “there are but four schools in this parish, none of them being properly public schools; they are supported by private subscription, and receive pro rata allowance as collateral aid, as the said allowance would not support either school for one month in the year.”22 Such sentiment echoed throughout the state. Two years later, Benjamin Fort of Bossier Parish reported, “all the schools of the parish I believe, are private as well as public.”23 Governor Alexander Mouton commented to the legislature after the passage of the 1845 Constitution that “experience in other States, as well as in this City, prove the Free School System, to be the only efficient one, all others have been vastly expensive and of very little utility,” but by the 1850s this provision was already being disregarded throughout the state.24 Louisiana’s free public school system effectively stopped functioning in many parts of the state as rural areas struggled with the requirements of state law but the inadequacies of state funding.

The insufficiency of legislative appropriations impacted Louisiana’s public school system in a variety of ways, revealing itself in dilapidated school-houses, incompetent teachers, and limited instruction. Throughout the antebellum period, Louisiana had too few public schools to serve all the state’s youth. In 1855 a Plaquemines Parish official reported only four public schools in his parish, though the parish maintained nine distinct school districts, and the districts extended, “from eighteen to twenty miles in length, with an average number of fifteen to twenty children in each district.”25 The amount of state

22Ibid., 1855, 41.

23Ibid., 1857, 35.

24Louisiana Senate Journal, First Session, 1846, 4.

25“Report of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1855, 41.

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funding proved so inadequate that Washington Parish officials could not even support two schools simultaneously and faced the sad dilemma of choosing to fund one school a year. In 1852 parish officials explained “there are only two school-houses in our district, and we have agreed to give all the public funds coming to our district to support this school this year, and the other school-house is to have next year’s funds to support a school.”26 In addition to the absence of enough schools to accommodate all of Louisiana’s children, the existing schools also operated for minimal amounts of time. On average, most public schools operated for only three months a year because the shortage of funds precluded a longer school year.27 In contrast, New Orleans public schools operated on a ten month school term, with holidays twice a year.28 Though three months of instruction each year proved better than none, such limited education with such long hiatuses certainly impeded the academic achievements of public school students outside of New Orleans. With too few public schools and limited instruction, the legislature still did not respond to such disappointing complaints, ignoring the inadequacies of the system which they themselves created.

In addition to the problems posed by the limited length of school terms and the scarcity of schools, instruction available to rural students in existing public institutions lagged far behind that offered by New Orleans public schools. After establishing successful elementary schools, the city in 1843 opened its first public high school, which offered a wide range of advanced courses.29 By the 1850s, city officials proudly boasted

26Ibid., 1852, 33.

27This conclusion was drawn by examining “Reports of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1847-1861.

28See pp. 28 above.

29Second Annual Report, Council of Municipality Number Two, 18; Alma H. Peterson, “A Historical Survey of the Administration of Education in New Orleans, 1718-1851” (PhD dissertation, Louisiana State University, 1962), 152.

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that their public high schools trained accomplished scholars who often themselves became teachers in local schools.30 In contrast, the instruction available in public schools in the rest of the state remained rudimentary. As late as 1857 only four parishes reported maintaining any public high school.31 The instruction offered in rural public schools most often consisted of reading, writing, and arithmetic, with some schools also offering geography, grammar, and history.32 As a Morehouse Parish official explained in his annual report of 1859, “the public schools of our parish are not improving as the society and wealth demands, and the consequence is, many of the children are sent to other States to get even an English education.”33 Despite such disappointing reports, the legislature never instituted regulations or standards for courses taught, materials used, or procedures followed. Without any state regulations or guidelines, the quality of public schools across the state remained inconsistent and inferior.

Incompetent teachers who often ran state-supported institutions contributed to the poor instruction available in public schools in rural Louisiana. Once parish officials overcame the difficulty encountered in finding instructors to employ in rural schools, these teachers often proved completely unqualified. Such incompetence may be attributed to the failure of local administrators to screen applicants properly, the unfavorable reputation endured by school teachers, as well as the pitiful sums available with which to pay instructors.34 Year after year the legislature heard disappointing reports on the ability of teachers in public schools across the state, but continued to do

30“Annual Report of the Treasurer of the Parish of Orleans, Fourth District, to the State Superintendent,” included in “Report of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1858,

31Reports of the Parish Treasurers, included in “Report of the State Superintendent of Education,”

Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1857, 27-112.

32Ibid.

33“Report of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1859, 93.

34See pp. 70-74 above.

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nothing. “As regards to the qualifications of teachers it is not good, for some of them can scarcely write their own name,” a Bienville Parish official remarked in 1857; the same year another local officer commented, “generally the teachers are scholastically bad, and morally worse.”35 Given such disappointing assessments of public school teachers who often maintained complete control over their respective schools, it is not surprising that the quality of instruction available in Louisiana’s public schools fell far below expectations. Yet the legislature never enacted any provisions to ensure the competency of public school instructors. Leaving parishes to employ any candidate regardless of qualifications, legislators offered no guidelines to ensure quality in Louisiana’s public schools.

In contrast to the unflattering evaluation of teachers in rural Louisiana, instructors in New Orleans public schools earned constant praise from both city and state officials. City administrators typically reported to the state superintendent that their teachers proved “capable, faithful and attentive,” and explained that “the moral and intellectual qualifications of the teachers, and the general character and condition of the schools, justify the confidence and affection of the community.”36 Every year New Orleans school administrators praised the teachers employed in public schools for their intellectual ability and dedication. New Orleans school board members explained in their very first report the care and consideration that went into choosing instructors to employ in public schools, carefully examining applicants on a wide range of subjects, but state lawmakers did not follow this example and chose not to enact such requirements for the state as a whole, so that many parishes continued to employ instructors without even a

35“Report of the State Superintendent of Education,” Louisiana Legislative Documents, 1857, 33, 89.

36Ibid., 1858, 102; ibid., 1859, 85; see also ibid., 1858, 96-102; ibid., 1859, 84-91.

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